Dark imperium plague war

[godking]

Just finished reading Dark Imperium plague war

 

Guy Haley is fast becoming my favorite W40k writer.

 

plague war was a perfect blend of action and drama.

 

 

Mathieu is one of the most aggravating characters in the W40K universe a worse hypocrite then Othere Wyrdmake.

 

Guy Haley outdid himself with this character

 

Only real minus was that the ending could have been better written. 

 

 

[ShadowSwordmaster]

The Dark Imperium series is a really good series that explores Guilliman as a character and his place in it. His whole rant to Mathieu towards the end of Plague Wars was amazing and shows how he really sees the Emperor versus everyone's idea of how he sees him. 

[Roomsky]

I enjoyed this one quite a bit, it seemed to know what it wanted to do quite a bit more than Dark Imperium, and so has a tighter focus and better structure. Despite being the most clearly influenced-by-marketing-priorities series in the new fluff, it does pretty well at slotting the big lore changes into old themes. Try as he might, Guilliman is surrounded by fanatics who plug their ears at his reason. Mortarion, for all his posturing, is still basically a stooge for daemons and is waging a war out of spite rather than any meaningful gain. I applaud Haley for keeping the spotlight on the big money makers while also hammering home that they aren't as much a game changer as some (myself included) may have thought.

 

The writing was pretty good and the looks into Guilliman's head are always a treat. I do think it could have been focused a little tighter, some incredibly minor characters (in-story) like Typhus and the rogue trader could have benefited from the screen time instead given to the titan pilot in the final engagement.

 

I dare say Black Library bringing its A-game to the 42nd millennium has salvaged the absolute garbage fire this new lore was upon launch. Good on all ye, Haley included, for all my occasional beef with his works.

[godking]

The Dark Imperium series is a really good series that explores Guilliman as a character and his place in it. His whole rant to Mathieu towards the end of Plague Wars was amazing and shows how he really sees the Emperor versus everyone's idea of how he sees him. 

Guilliman is'nt a saint but he sure has the patience of one.

 

I don't think that i could have spent a week in Guillimans shoes before going "shut it down shut it all down".

 

Guilliman is a man of reason dealing with delusional zealots trying to educate him events that he was actually present  for based on third hand information passed down over ten thousand years.

 

I imagine that Guilliman probably has weekly conversations that go like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yX_1gJ_51M

 

Mathieu is lucky that Guilliman did'nt kill him on the spot for what he pulled and lying about it.

 

Someone like Mathieu can excuse any act as long as in the end things go as he want them to.

 

Mortarion is still stone stupid and after 10 thousand years still a foolish hypocrite.

Edited May 11, 2019 by godking

[Ishagu]

I think that Guy is now potentially the best BL author.

 

He jumped to the top of my list after the incredible Devastation of Baal book, as well as Dark Imperium 1 and 2.

I also loved every moment of Wolfsbane, although I'm aware it angers SW fans due to a particular moment in the book.

 

Dark Imperium 1&2 should be mandatory reading for everyone in the hobby lol

[b1soul]

Dunno about that...

 

Guy is a very solid workhorse (as in the quality-quanity balance of his output is impressive)

 

Wraight, ADB, and Abnett's best stuff are still significantly better IMO

 

French to me is like a Guy with stronger prose but slower output

[Ishagu]

I think Abnett is responsible for some incredible stories but he's also behind some very inconsistent works.

 

ADB is fantastic also, no question.

[Kelborn]

Just my two cents but Haley, while being especially great in the Primarch series, his "bigger" novels won't grab me like Chris' or Aarons.

 

Perturabo, Corax (and most likely Curze) were magnificent. I didn't want them to put aside. Wolfsbane and the Dark Imperium novels are great - no doubt about that but they don't have the same effect on me. Tbh, I've started Dark Imperium and Wolfsbane two times now and haven't even finished one of them.

Instead I just read a couple of pages from Talon of Horus and I don't want to stop again. See what I mean?

 

To each his own ranking, I'd say. ;)

[Panzer]

Haley is good, no question, however I feel he is lacking the special something. His stories feel more like he got a task from GW to write about something specific to progress the story so he did it to a good quality standard and that's it. ADBs stories feel like he's writing about something he actually really wanted to write about without anyone telling him. Haley is still in my top 3 though!

[DukeLeto69]

IMO Haley is a good solid reliable author but none of his work that I have read to date excites me in same way as Abnett, Fehervari, ADB, French or Wraight.

 

In places Dark Imperium (1st one) felt like codex fluff!

[Marshal Rohr]

I’m working my way through Plague War right now. It’s not too bad, he’s definitely getting he’s feet under him with 40k. After reading Dark Imperium to research the size of the initial Primaris number I agree it feels like Codex fluff. Guy is a good author, Titandeath and Wolfsbane were both really good novels. Pharos felt like it could be in either 30k or 40k, a trait that isn’t specific to Guy’s writing. He’s done his best with the post-rift lore but there isn’t a lot he can do to fix the inconsistencies or plainly bad concepts of the post-Gathering Storm lore. Edited May 22, 2019 by Marshal Rohr

[Kenzaburo]

I rate Haley rather high. Beside the insane output of this man, his prose is precise and easy to read. He lacks the flowery, sometimes almost poetic descriptive prose of ADB or the beat-by-beat riveting pacing of Abnett, but to me he's on par with Wraight and French. 

 

His Primarch work, not only in the Primarch series, is good to great. I like his Guilliman a lot (all those introspections in the Dark Imperium books is fantastic), but his Corax and Curze are also very, very strong. He can also handle other authors' characters with respect and make them shine in his own prose. All of that is pretty high quality. 

 

I gotta say, though, that the way he describes the world and surroundings, the way he embeds them in the story, is often times pretty straight forward - while Abnett, Wraight and especially ADB seem at times more elaborate. 

 

From my point of view it's only fitting he was chosen to be one of the authors for the siege. Good consistent quality with a good grasp of all the lore has more than earned him a spot in the upper echelon of BL writers, at least in my book. I'd read Haley's stuff anytime.

 

And while some people seem to dislike Pharos, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

[b1soul]

Wraight over Haley any day...but Haley is solid

[DarkChaplain]

In terms of the Primarchs series, Wraight's Russ was on the disappointing side for me. It actually felt rather forgettable in places, and the framing story at front and back may have set the mood well enough, but felt really damn inconsequential in the end.

Looking at Jaghatai's book, I liked it well enough but felt that it lacked focus in terms of its narrative. It described the Legion and certain key characters as well as Jaghatai as well as you might expect after Scars and The Path of Heaven, but in the end I wasn't satisfied with what actually happened in the book. It seemed like an extended prologue to his other novels, which wasn't a bad thing in itself, but also not something I really needed to read, with few groundbreaking bits.

 

Now, comparing that to Haley's Primarchs, I was satisfied with all of them both in what they did with their Primarchs, the way they added a new/often neglected angle to the demigods, the narratives themselves, and the general thematic cohesiveness as well as how they played on elements established by other authors. Haley pulls many strings together to make a greater whole, which also happens in Dark Imperium and side stories, or Dante and The Devastation of Baal. Wraight feels more isolated in his works. He writes what he knows and he writes it well, but Haley also ventures into territory previously untouched by him and does his due diligence to research and tie it into the larger web of the setting. That alone makes Haley's work a lot more special to me. He writes great character pieces and interactions, doesn't get bogged down in super flowery prose (something that has made it hard for me to care about, say, Sanders and sometimes even French) but still provides plenty of context and atmosphere with what he provides. He balances his writing well, and it's themes are a lot stronger than those I've seen from Wraight in comparable works. And it isn't like Haley couldn't up his prose level - some of his original works can be pretty dense that way - but he strikes a good fit for whatever he is writing.

[b1soul]

I liked Warhawk a lot, but felt it should have included the first encounter between the WS and the SW. That would have been a great little bit of inter-legion interaction.

[Ascanius]

I rate Haley rather high. Beside the insane output of this man, his prose is precise and easy to read. He lacks the flowery, sometimes almost poetic descriptive prose of ADB or the beat-by-beat riveting pacing of Abnett, but to me he's on par with Wraight and French.

 

I think I agree with you on this point. Haley doesn't write with the same flourishes or sophistication as others, but that he's able to write to a consistently high standard at the pace he does is certainly impressive.

 

Where he drops out of the top of the pyramid* for me is that, perhaps because he's writing at such a pace and is often asked to write novels versus pitching ideas to Black Library (as it seems Wraight did with his two Terra-focused series and French did with the Horusian Wars), his ideas also tend to be a bit more straightforward, more of an exploration of existing lore about the setting than contributing something new** to it.

 

I have enjoyed every one of his books that I've read, though, so this is more me saying "He can only get better from here" than anything else.

 

* Like the food pyramid, every level as you descend gets wider and some things within tiers are put on top of the others. The first tier is Dan Abnett, the second tier is Aaron Dembski-Bowden just above John French and Chris Wraight, the third tier is Guy Haley and Robbie MacNiven just above, say, McNeill and Guymer, et cetera.

 

** Not sure if this really counts as "contributing something new", but Dante made me interested in the Blood Angels in a way that I wouldn't have thought possible, so that's something!

[Malios]

I'm not one for comparing authors personally: I gave that up a long time ago when I accepted that each author is human with a different erspective and I'm lucky to have their perspective.

 

The main highlights in Plague War that really stood out to me were:

 

- The uncertainty behind the Primaris Marines, expressed in the Novamarines. The Primaris didn't feel that they belonged in the chapter whereas the Novamarines weren't sure what to do with them spiritually or even tactically. After all the codex launches where it felt very "you get primaris! You get primaris! All get primaris!" This sense of doubt was amazing and almost welcoming to see.

 

- The Deathguard (or derivative warband of) were highly competent tacticians. Often deathguard are portrayed as zombies in power armour with no tactical reasoning and a septic sense of madness, but in Plague War we have true veterans of the long war. They suppress, they flank, they enhance their tactics with their chaos granted gifts. It was great to see.

 

- The politics, as other people have touched on, were great. The Imperium is as dysfunctional as ever, even between space marines in the same chapter. Just as well, Chaos (in this context Nurgle) is also just as dysfunctional.

 

I definitely will be reading book three.

[Ishagu]

A lot of people don't like Primaris but the uncertainty around them and the drama created between the old and new type of Marines makes for great stories.

[Burni]

Sorry if it’s been covered already but do we know anything about a third book? Is it something that’s coming this year?

[Sothalor]

Well, the cover description for Plague War describes it as the second part of the Dark Imperium trilogy, so presumably there'll be a third at some point. There's nothing in the next few months about it on the (minimally functional) Coming Soon section on Warhammer Community; probably don't expect it before the fall.

[Felix Antipodes]

The LE version is up for preorder for those interested

[Panzer]

The LE version is up for preorder for those interested

 

Where? I can see it being sold on ebay (for $200 lol) but not anywhere else. Not that I'd be interested in ... there are only a handful of warhammer LEs I wanted to buy and those are long gone (like the Fabius Bile one).

[Knockagh]

It on main GW site not on BL. This despite the fact that the email announcing its release has a dead link to BL. More class from GW central!

 

I bought this despite not really enjoying the opening book. But this one seems to have better reviews also I love Guy Haley and the fact that this one actually has a cover that matches the first one! Hopefully BL are catching on to the whole collection thing!

Edited June 22, 2019 by Knockagh

[Panzer]

I see. The GW shop was the only place I didn't check and google didn't have any links to it either lol

[Knockagh]

All gone, don’t think there were many left after BL live.